A few weeks ago, former Attorney General Mark Brnovich faced a flood of court cases before the state bar for hiding the fact that his own investigation into the 2020 election had uncovered no evidence of fraud.
In the meantime, we await the Society of Lawyers’ court cases opposing lawyers, as their frivolous voter fraud lawsuits are ridiculed in court for their total lack of merit.
So, you may be wondering, what does the Arizona-led legislature do through Arizona Republicans?
Why, gutting the Arizona State Bar, of course. Various expenses are being passed through the legislature to restrict the success of the Law Society or even burden it altogether.
One of them is the brainchild of Republican Senator Justine Wadsack, who claims the bar amid a COVID-19-related sinister plot.
Wadsack is part of a bumper crop of new far-right lawmakers who have crashed into the Capitol to wage war on drag queens, teachers, election officials and even charter cities. chosen in it from Tucson. )
His Senate Bill 1435 would end the requirement that Arizona lawyers register for the bar. Instead, the Arizona Supreme Court deserves to take over the policing duties of the legal profession—arguably everything from handling grievances and ongoing legal education to making sure the attorney you rent is competent and ethical.
According to Wadsack, the Law Society wants to pass because it has threatened to “immediately disqualify” any lawyer who dares to take on a COVID-19 case.
“I’ve had hundreds, if not more than a thousand, of other people who have tried to sue doctors, state officials, county officials, city officials telling them that if they didn’t get the COVID-19 vaccine, if they didn’t mask their children at school, if they didn’t comply, they would lose their jobs or their children would be kicked out of school. “he told the House Judiciary Committee last week. “The lawyers came up to me and told me they weren’t allowed to settle for any of those cases because, if they did, the Arizona State Bar would attack them immediately. “
Wadsack told a specific story of an unvaccinated person who believes his COVID-related injuries were the result of medical malpractice.
Rep. Analise Ortiz, D-Tempe, had the gall to ask a question.
“Senator Wadsack, do you have any evidence that the bar association told the lawyer not to take the case as opposed to the lawyer simply making this resolution based on his own amusement and knowing what is smart to bring before the court and what it is?
Wadsack interrupted him: “Rep. Ortiz, I don’t owe you anything as proof. The fact that I am a state senator-elect, I come before you after speaking with many other people who have experienced this.
Note to Wadsack: It’s a smart concept to incorporate the products when you’re asking the legislature to eliminate an 88-year-old law that targets the public of unscrupulous and simply incompetent lawyers.
Moreover, this might not be as important when Republicans are looking to bypass the bar for an entirely different reason: to protect right-wing lawyers who have used the courts to advance a political agenda.
Since last week’s hearing, Wadsack has said he cannot provide any evidence of the bar’s risk because it has the identities of everyone involved.
Most likely, because that didn’t happen.
“It’s just not our role,” State Bar CEO and CEO Joel England told me. “We do not advise lawyers on what instances they can and cannot take. Don’t do that
If, in fact, Wadsack actually spoke to a thousand other people who were unable to locate anyone to take their COVID-19 cases, it is possibly because the legislature in 2021 passed a law granting immunity to fitness service providers, employers and others for movements taken by the pandemic.
Doug Ducey called for liability laws to be imposed on them “so that a state emergency doesn’t fill litigants’ wallets with frivolous lawsuits. “
Of course, Wadsack’s bill to the bar association was approved anyway, in an online vote.
So did Sen. Anthony Kern’s SB 1092 on Tuesday, which prevents the bar association and Supreme Court from sanctioning or revoking an attorney’s license for “making a good-faith, non-frivolous, claim to the law and facts in court. “
Do not worry that such a thing is already illegal. Lawyers are subject to penalties if they file bad religion and frivolous lawsuits.
The Scottsdale Republican, an attorney who is lately being investigated by the bar for filing a frivolous complaint of voter fraud in 2020, said the bar has a political bias opposed to conservative lawyers.
“I need to be judged by a jury of my peers, a cross-section of society and not necessarily other people who have other political biases for much of my career,” he said in a discussion of Wadsack’s bill.
I think many of your fellow lawyers would agree, those who now face the Law Society’s court case perspective for the courts as a political PR machine.
Contact Roberts at laurie. roberts@arizonarepublic. com. Follow her on Twitter in @LaurieRoberts.